So it’s been an intense week of blogging and writing, two posts I’m proud of and an op-ed I’m even more pleased with. Good times! On the lighter side, I’m just finishing up two days in Atlanta that started badly but have become really enjoyable.

The bad was the taxi ride in. After asking the driver if I could pay with a Visa before getting in the taxi he then said (mid-trip!) I was supposed to have done all this special stuff at the airport (something the hotel concierge said sounded fishy). I’m so tired of American cities where taxis don’t take Visa… Toronto, Calgary, Vancouver, even Montreal most of the time, take Visa no problem. What is up with that? (Other than the obvious tax evasion that dealing only in cash allows you to engage in).

The ugly of Atlanta is the traffic. If ever there was a case for more robust public transit, Atlanta has to be the definitive case study. It is gridlock in the town… incredible.

The good is pretty much everything else during this trip. The crew I’m working with are nice fun guys. I’m at the “W” hotel where the staff (right down to the repair men) are the nicest I’ve ever met (and the most fun). The client took me out to see the Thrashers play the Penguins (that’s a hockey game for non-canadian readers) and I got to see Sid the Kid score from about 30 feet away. Brilliant. And the hockey fans here are awesome – good spirited and up for a laugh. Atlanta is also surprisingly racially integrated – I’m not citing facts here, just casual observation, so I could be dead wrong on that one.

Best of all it’s been nice getting a steady stream of emails about yesterday’s piece (which they told us would only be online, but then somebody emailed Taylor saying they saw it in the paper… so now we’re just confused, but happy – anyone know for sure?).

Next stop Ottawa to give a talk on public service sector renewal to Stats Canada and do a few brown bag lunches. See you Monday!

No matter where you are, what your day looks like, or who you intend to vote for, I hope you’ll take the time today to vote.

If you’ve left it all to the last minute and your not sure where the polling booths in your riding are – check out this page on the Elections Canada website. You can search by postal code.

Makes it easy.

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Also, for those who care, did a little upgrading of the blog over the weekend. Some new stuff under the hood that you won’t notice but also some cool stuff for your browsing pleasure. Among those things that are visible:

• New section on the sidebar tracks my most popular posts (obvious winner here – Firefox pledge map – pledges as a % of population was slashdotted and before my server crumpled into a crying lump of clay it logged over 20,000 hits in 24 hours)
• After clicking on a specific post a new sidebar will feature lists three posts that may be of interest
• For non-Canadian techies interested in my writing on open-source but not much else, there is now a special open source subject specific RSS feed

So it turns out that others are also concerned about the differences between the Nanos poll and the Decima poll. The Ottawa Citizen has run a story about it today.

2 differences apparently account for the gap. One, Decima prompts people with a choice of who they are supporting whereas Nanos asks an open ended question – meaning the responding has to choose. The second is more interesting:

Nanos pays more to get cellphone exchanges included in its calling list. Cell users tend to be young and more transient than those with land-lines, Mr. Nanos says.

So, Nanos sample is actually more representative. Decima is going to be skewed towards older voters. What is more interesting is that this problem isn’t a new one…

Once again, as Jeffrey Simpson recently pointed out, foreign policy seems to be a non-issue in the election.

It is somewhat understandable. With our soldiers in Afghanistan, the polar ice caps at a record low, our non-compliance of kyoto, the environmental implications of the tar sands, Obama and McCain’s reliance on Canadian oil in their energy security plans and the continued erosion of human rights, its not like foreign policy should be relevant to Canadians.

Well our friends over at Canada’s World are trying to change all that. Better still they have a list of questions they are encouraging people to ask candidates in their riding. Ask a few questions here and few questions there, and suddenly the main stream media might start paying attention.